Untitled - Warsan Shire

I'm sorry you were not

truly loved and that it

made you cruel.

She Dotes - Edward Thomas

She dotes on what the wild birds say

Or hint or mock at, night and day, --

Thrush, blackbird, all that sing in May,

     And songless plover,

Hawk, heron, owl, and woodpecker.

They never say a word to her

     About her lover.

She laughs at them for childishness,

She cries at them for carelessness

Who see her going loverless

     Yet sing and chatter

Just as when he was not a ghost,

Nor ever ask her what she has lost

     Or what is the matter.

Yet she has fancied blackbirds hide

A secret, and that thrushes chide

Because she thinks death can divide

     Her from her lover:

And she has slept, trying to translate

The word the cuckoo cries to his mate

     Over and over.

The Inspection - Fred Voss

Whenever a good-looking secretary walks down the aisle at

Goodstone Aircraft Company,

the machinists make a point of staring at her

from the moment they spot her.

They move around their machines

to keep her tits and ass and thighs

in view,

making sure that it is obvious

they are watching her.

They drift away from their machines,

sticking their necks out into the aisle

to keep her in view

until she is out the door of the building.

Then they let out with shrill whistles,

shaking their heads and hands

and going limp all over as if they were about to collapse,

making sure that everyone knows

how much their lustful minds sucked in

every inch of every curve on her body,

competing with each other

to see who

can stagger and whistle and maintain

their open-mouthed black-eyed look

the longest,

glancing about at each other

to take stock of the results.

Finally, when it is safe to quit whistling and moaning

tributes to her body,

they return to their machines,

reassured that they have once again passed

the test.

When a Friend (for Ellis Settle, 1924-93) - Stephen Dobyns

When a friend dies, part

of oneself splits off

and spins into the outer dark.

No use calling it back.

No use saying I miss you.

Part of one's body has been riven.

One recollects gestures,

mostly trivial. The way

he pinched a cigarette,

the way he crouched on a chair.

Now he is less than a living flea.

Where has he gone, this person

whom I loved? He is vapor now;

he is nothing. I remember

talking to him about the world.

What a rich place it became

within our vocabulary. I did not

love it half so much until

he spoke of it, until it was sifted

through the adjectives of our discussion.

And now my friend is dead.

His warm hand has been reversed.

His movements across a room

have been erased. How I wish

he was someplace specific. He

is nowhere. He is absence.

When he spoke of the things

he loved - books, music, pictures,

the articulation of idea -

his body shook as if a wire

within him suddenly surged.

In passion, he filled the room.

Where has he gone, this friend

whom I loved? The way he shaved,

the way he cut his hair, even

the way he squinted when he talked,

when he embraced idea, held it -

all vanished. He has been reduced

to memory. The books he loved,

I see them on my shelves. The words

he spoke still group around me. But

this is chaff. This is the container

now that heart has been scraped out.

He is defunct now. His body is less

than cinders; less than a sentence

after being whispered. He is the zero

from which a man has vanished. He

was the smartest, most vibrant,

like a match suddenly struck, flaring;

now he is sweepings in a roadway.

Where is he gone? He is nowhere.

My friends, I knew a wonderful man,

these words approximate him,

as chips of stone approximate

a tower, as wind approximates a song.

I Shall Not Care - Sara Teasdale

When I am dead and over me bright April

Shakes out her rain-drenched hair,

Tho' you should lean above me broken-hearted,

I shall not care.

 

I shall have peace, as leafy trees are peaceful

When rain bends down the bough,

And I shall be more silent and cold-hearted

Than you are now.

 

I love too much; I am a river

Surging with spring that seeks the sea,

I am too generous a giver,

Love will not stoop to drink of me.

 

His feet will turn to desert places

Shadowless, reft of rain and dew,

Where stars stare down with sharpened faces

From heavens pitilessly blue.

 

And there at midnight sick with faring,

He will stoop down in his desire

To slake the thirst grown past all bearing

In stagnant water keen as fire.

Going Without Saying (i.m. Joe Flynn) - Bernard O'Donoghue

It is a great pity we don't know

When the dead are going to die

So that, over a last companionable

Drink, we could tell them

How much we liked them.

Happy the man who, dying, can

Place his hand on his heart and say:

‘At least I didn't neglect to tell

The thrush how beautifully she sings.’